The Prodigal Spy (60 page)

Tim’s eyes darted about the room in frustration.

“Just one bad moment, when you thought you caused her death. But you forgave yourself, didn’t you? God always forgives if you ask him in time, isn’t that the way it goes? And for such a cause. But I don’t forgive you. I want you to die knowing that. Never. You ruined our lives. For what? So you could have dinner with Clyde and Edgar? Do God a favor? Rosemary Cochrane was murdered. My father was murdered. Does God forgive that? Maybe yours does, but it’s a chance, isn’t it? What if you’re wrong? Maybe they’re just beads.” He brushed the rosary in Tim’s hand.

“Communists—”

“Yes, they were Communists. So what? Anyway, they died for it. I want you to see their faces when you go. Do you know how my father died? Somebody took a pillow, just like this one, and held him down till he couldn’t breathe. Till his legs stopped kicking. Yours wouldn’t even move.”

Tim, his eyes wide with fright, moved his hand toward the call button, but Nick snatched it and put it on the table, out of reach.

“Don’t worry. I’d like to, but I won’t. You’re not worth it. Let God do it.” Nick leaned over. “I just wanted you to know what you did. So you can live with it too.” And then suddenly, the fury broken, Nick felt his eyes fill with tears. “You started everything. You unholy bastard. Just so you could be somebody–with your lousy piece of gossip.”

He looked down at the figure, the still, wasted frame, the twisted face, already punished. What was the point? Tim’s eyes leaping.

“You thought I’d never know,” Nick said calmly. “All that time, watching it happen. My mother. Nobody blaming you. Not even blaming yourself–not after putting yourself in God’s hands. I’ll bet you made a private confession. Only a fool would trust the box.”

“Nick—” Another gurgle, his breathing ragged.

“But I do know. So die knowing that. I do know. No absolution.”

Nick turned to go. A frantic sound. He looked back. The breathing was a gasp now, Tim’s hands motioning toward the call button. Nick started toward the table to get it, then stopped.

“No,” he said. “Let God do it. He owes you.”

The old man’s eyes wild now, afraid. A grunt.

“Pray, Tim,” Nick said, backing away. “Maybe he’ll hear you.”

Molly, seeing his face, said nothing in the car, fiddling with her bandage instead.

“Who were you seeing?” she said finally.

“An old friend of my mother’s. He’s dying.”

“What a good little boy you are.”

“The best.”

She looked at him. “You all right?”

He nodded. “It’s over. We’re going to New York.”

“They’ll call. About your father.” For a moment she was quiet. “You killed him, didn’t you? Not the other man.”

He looked straight ahead. “Yes.”

She bit her lower lip. “Was it–self-defense?” Wanting it to be true.

Nick saw Larry’s surprised face, finally betrayed. “Yes,” he said. She was about to speak again when he turned to her. “It’s over.”

She nodded, then placed her hand on his, just a touch, and looked out the window at the river. “I wonder if they’ll find John Brown,” she said finally.

“Count on it. I hope Hoover nails him personally. He’d be just right. They both lived with their mothers.”

He turned the car toward the Mall.

“This isn’t the way to the airport.”

“No. I thought we’d take the train. For old times’ sake.”

She looked at him, the first hint of a smile. “Okay.”

He drove past the Mall, where crews were cleaning up litter from the rally, then up the hill, turning into the street behind the Supreme Court, the lighted Capitol dome. A spring night in the South, the magnolias thick and glossy, lights on in the row of houses. The big forsythia bushes spilling over the wrought-iron fences. He stopped the car, idling.

“Was that your house?” Molly said.

“Yes.”

Lights on upstairs. His bedroom window no longer scratched by the tall tree, which must have been taken down. When? Inside, a woman passed in front of the window. Everything was quiet in the street.

“Does it bother you?” she asked softly.

“I thought it would.”

And for a second, just one, he was looking out the back window on that last day, the sidewalk covered with moving cartons.

“But it’s just a house,” he said, shifting into drive, the frozen picture moving again.

She looked at him. “Your house.”

“No,” he said. “Not anymore.”